Former President Jimmy Carter, diplomat of peace, builder of houses for humanity, Sunday School teacher at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia, and one of my role models, brought up an interesting and perhaps paradoxical Bible passage:
“Whoever watches the wind will not plant;
Whoever looks at the cloud will not reap…
Sow your seed in the morning, and at evening let not your hands be idle, for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well.” Ecclesiastes 11:4, 6.
President Carter reflected on this passage and wrote that it cannot mean that we should either ignore the weather or give up on planting. Any farmer will tell you that paying attention to weather is important. You don’t plant certain crops until the conditions are suitable.
President Carter said that in Georgia any farmer knows better than to plant peanuts in soil too cold or too wet. Gardeners in Cook County will tell you much the same. Soil temperature is critical. We pay attention to the weather. And by the way hasn’t this been a challenging growing season.
But Jimmy Carter mused that the message must be about more than watching and waiting for perfect conditions. Perhaps the wisdom in Ecclesiastes is that in life we don’t have the luxury of waiting for everything to be perfect before we act or seek to live. And actually I think farmers and gardeners would tell you the same.
I know as a bee-keeper I can’t always wait for the perfect day to open the hive and care for my colonies. And believe me, a less than perfect day can have stinging consequences. I know from past experience that when I watch the wind and look at the clouds, telling myself that I need a bright sunny day, at noon, with little to no wind, and let it be on my day off, and if all those conditions are met, then I can do the tasks required, well, I have missed my chance and lost my colony.
Now you know very well that this article is not really about farming and gardening or even bee-keeping. Jimmy Carter says, “If we wait for perfection in our lives, for exactly the right moment, then we may never act!”
The wisdom that is included in these words from Ecclesiastes suggests that life, like gardening, requires taking a chance and then very importantly, putting effort into it. The second portion of the wisdom saying includes the advice “sow your seed in the morning, and at evening let not your hands be idle.” So this is where life is like a garden again. Gardeners do not have idle hands.
I know from many gardeners that the simple act of planting seeds is not their definition of a being good gardener. Gardening requires so much tender care and attentiveness for the rest of the season; there is all the weeding, and watering, and working the soil, and tending the plants. And even then we don’t know if we’ll be successful. But without the effort surely we won’t. And in fact, in life as in gardening and farming success does not always happen even with all our effort and sometimes we do fail. But we will plant again.
When we think about those things that are important to us in our families, in our communities, in our world, we should act. President Carter compared this to making a commitment to faith Jesus Christ and promising to serve God according to the pattern Jesus set, but then waiting for a better time. That waiting like watching the winds however can lead to a timid and diminished life and missed opportunities. Rather we can admit that the conditions may not be perfect, we may not be completely prepared, we may actually fail, but we can accept the challenge and continue and seek to make a difference.
The time is now, take a chance. We can be the love God gave us to share, we can be the stewards of creation God called us to be, we can be the peacemakers Jesus has blessed.
Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. This month our contributor is Reverend Mark Ditmanson of Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Grand Marais.
Leave a Reply